Soldiers of Alpha: Redeployed
by MjrJaz
Summary: A sequel to Soldiers of Alpha Take Colonel Rick Flag and his side kick Jaz Chapman back to lead another unpredictable adventure with the Suicide Squad in tow. The criminals unite to battle a mysterious new opponent, while the diabolical Joker launches an evil agenda of his own.


For a long moment I hung by my hands from the hatch door and let the climate come aboard. My lungs still weren't functioning as well as I would have liked, and the soggy air made for hard breathing.

"Hot here." Captain Martin Zander had ordered the chopper's shut down and was crowding my shoulder. I stepped out from the hatch to let him out and shaded my eyes against the glare of the sun.

From the air, the Pentagon had looked as innocuous as most scheme-built structure but close up the uniform tidiness went down under assault from reality.

A stench of burning polymer waited to meet me on the scant breeze; the helicopter's landing field had blown sheets of waste paper and plastic up against the nearest stretch of perimeter fence, and now the power was frying them to fragments. Beyond the fence, robot sentry systems grew from the baked earth like iron weeds.

The drowsy hum of capacitors formed a constant backdrop to the human noises of the internees.

A small squad of local militia slouched up behind a sergeant who reminded me vaguely of my father on one of his better days.

They saw the SEAL uniforms and pulled up short. The sergeant gave me a grudging salute.

"Colonel Rick Flag," I said briskly. "This is Lieutenant Colonel Chapman and Captain Zander. We're here to appropriate Amanda Waller, for briefing."

The sergeant frowned. "I wasn't informed of this."

"I'm informing you now, sergeant." In situations like this, the uniform was usually enough. It was widely known on Sanction IV that the SEALs were the Protectorate's unofficial hard men, and generally they got what they wanted.

Even the other mercenary units tended to back down when it came tussles over requisitioning.

But something seemed to be sticking in this sergeant's throat.

"I'll have to see some authorisation."

I snapped my fingers at Zander and held out a hand for the hardcopy.

It hadn't been difficult to obtain.

In a planet-wide conflict like this, Blackburn gave his commanding officers latitudes of initiative that a Protectorate divisional commander would kill for.

No one had even asked me what I wanted Waller for. No one cared. So far the toughest thing had been the helo; they had a use for that and IP (Individual private) transport was in short supply.

There was going to be some trouble about that eventually, but then, as Waller herself was fond of saying, _this was a war, not a popularity contest._

"Will that be sufficient, sergeant?"

He poured over the printout, as if he was hoping the authorisation flashes would prove to be peel-off fakes. I shifted with an impatience which was not entirely feigned. The atmosphere of the building was oppressive, and the chopper's whining ran on incessantly behind us.

I wanted to be out of here.

The sergeant looked up and handed me the hardcopy. "You'll have to leave your friend outside," he said woodenly. "These people are all under government supervision."

I shot glances past him left and right, then looked back into his face. "Right." I let the sneer hang for a moment, and his eyes dropped away from mine. "Let's go talk to Waller then. Captain, stay here. This won't take long."

Lieutenant Colonel Jaz Chapman followed me quietly as we weaved through a maze of sterile corridors.

She hadn't said a word since leaving the base in D.C, probably due to her unsavoury performance before our departure. I didn't blame her though- Hayes who had taking on the qualities of a golden retriever,; loyal, but never learned when to roll over.

Whatever the reason, Hayes' puppy dog behaviour and my apparent rivalry with him was disconcerting.

Waller's office was in a double-storey wing cordoned off from the rest of the Pentagon by more power security.

Smaller sentry units squatted on top of the walls like early millennium gargoyles and uniformed recruits not yet out of their teens stood at the door clutching oversize rifles. Their young faces looked scraped and raw beneath the gadgetry-studded combat helmets.

Why they were there at all was beyond me.

Either the robot units were fake, or the Pentagon was suffering from severe overmanning.

We passed through without a word, went up a light alloy staircase that someone had epoxied carelessly to the side of the concrete wall and the sergeant buzzed the door.

A secure-cam set over the intel dilated briefly and the door cracked open. I stepped inside, breathing the conditioning-chilled air with relief.

Most of the light in the office came from a bank of security monitors on the far wall. Adjacent to them was a moulded plastic desk dominated on one side by a cheap computer and a keyboard. The rest of the surface was scattered with curling sheets of hardcopy, marker pens and other administrative debris.

Abandoned coffee cups rose out of the mess like cooling towers in an industrial wasteland.

"Ma'am?" The sergeant muttered

"What is it, sergeant?" The voice was slurred and dull, disinterested.

I advanced into the cool gloom and the woman behind the desk lifted her head slightly.

"Colonel Flag and Lieutenant Colonel Chapman," I said softly.

"Well." Waller struggled upright in her chair. "Perhaps you'd like more light in here, Colonel. I like the dark, but then," she chuckled behind closed lips. "I have an eye for it. You, perhaps, have not."

She groped across the keyboard and after a couple of attempts the main lights came up in the corners of the room.

Her bleary eyes focused on me. The rest of her face was fine featured, but long exposure to the computers and stress of governments had robbed her face of coherency and rendered the expression slack and stupid.

"Is that better?" Waller's face attempted something that was more leer than smile. "I imagine it is; you come after all from the real world." The capitals echoed ironically. she gestured across the room at the monitor screens.

My eyes fell to paper-strewn desk, then went back to her face. "You have our full attention, Waller."

For a long moment, she stared at me, then s he lurched round to face the sergeant, who was hovering just inside the door with two of the militia. "Get out."

The sergeant did so with an alacrity that suggested he hadn't much wanted to be there in the first place. The uniformed extras followed, one of them gently pulling the door shut behind him. As the door latched, Waller slumped back in her chair.

A sound escaped her lips that might have been either sigh or cough, or maybe laughter. "Down to a trickle, I assure you."

"So what, may I ask, do you want with us?" Jaz said finally, breaking her long silence.

"Fine soldiers you have been, and I don't trust anyone else to do the job."

"I haven't come for your riddles, Waller." Jaz snapped.

"Ah, then it's a reckoning, is it? Since you don't have the patience for pleasantries." The idea seemed to amuse her. "I need you at Belle Reve, get Task Force X on scene. It seems the Joker has assassinated one of our most valuable assets. Haven't you heard?"

I shook my head.

"The Bat is dead. The Joker got to him before anyone had any idea he was still alive."

A slight sharpening stole through me. I said nothing, only put the hardcopy authorisation on the table in front of Waller and waited.

She seemed to be muttering something under her breath.

"Same problem?" Jaz asked quietly.

Waller's eyes looked suddenly clearer.

"What do I want you for?" she asked, equally softly. "The Joker? No doubts he will heading to the black site to get his queen back."

I wondered, with a sudden iciness, if I was going to have to kill this man. It wouldn't be difficult to do. Bare-handed, those were long odds.

"That has even less to do with you than it does with me. I have my orders to carry out, and now you have yours. Do you have Harley Quinn in custody, or not?" Jaz didn't look away the way the sergeant had. Maybe it was something from the depths of the anger that was pushing her, some clenched bitterness she had discovered whilst staring into the blank walls of the chopper the entire way here.

Maybe it had nothing to do with Hayes at all. Like that would have bothered her this much. Blackburn seemed to have given us both some kind of death sentence and Jaz; more loyal to the SEALs than she could be to me, was resenting the decision to take my place. For now, she wasn't going to give.

Behind my back, preparatory, my right hand flexed and loosened.

Abruptly, Waller's forearm collapsed across the desk like a dynamited tower and the papers gusted free of her fingers. My hand whiplashed out and pinned the paper on the edge of the desk before it could fall.

Waller made a small dry noise in her throat.

For a moment we both looked at the hand holding the paper in silence, then the Waller sagged back in her seat. "I realise that sending you out on an op changes the second you land on the ground. But want to be sure that the Joker does not cause a riot at Belle Reve, and letting another maniac loose. _That_ is your job, Lieutenant Colonel." She narrowed her eyes at Jaz. "Sergeant," she bellowed hoarsely.

The door opened.

"Sergeant, get these two what they need to infiltrate Belle Reve and capture the Joker."

The sergeant saluted and left, relief at the decision being taken out of his hands washing over his face like the effect of a drug.

"Thank you, Waller." I added my own forced salute, and turned to leave. I was almost at the door when the sergeant spoke again.

"Popular woman," he said.

*.*.*.*.

With it's landing gear extended, descending at a constant three degrees, the KC-135 Stratotanker began its approach to the Belle Reve runway, less than five miles away.

The facility was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a vast bayou of cypress trees and swampland. Only a long causeway connected it to the rest of the world, but the drawbridge was raised, isolating it further.

The aircraft was coming in low at an approach sped of 100 knots. It buzzed over patrol boats bristling with machine guns, manned by alert guards.

The prison looked like an Iraq firebase with its missile launchers, plastic barriers, camouflage netting and patrolling Humvees. Nobody was getting in uninvited.

Even more important, nobody was getting out.

The Stratotanker hit the tarmac. Moments later it taxied to a halt.

Amanda Waller, Jaz Chapman and I made our way down the ramp with the cold breeze caressing our faces with an unwelcome stench of swamp.

Captain Griggs was at the bottom of the ramp, saluting and putting on a big fake smile. He closed the gap to shake hands with me. "Welcome to Belle Reve Special Security Barracks," he said.

I ignored his hand and nodded towards Waller. "Kiss her ass," I suggested. "She's in charge."

Griggs hesitated upon his eyes resting on Waller's unimpressed face. "Oh, you guys again."

"Where are they?" Jaz snapped, impatient.

I felt my face flush, forgetting that Jaz was the most impatient soldier I had ever had to work with and didn't have time for manners.

Belle Reve was a giant waiting room for criminals.

Last time we extracted the Task Force, it was in uncertain circumstances.

"We'll get you in there, ma'am," Griggs glanced at the .45 strapped to Jaz's leg, and the carbine strapped to my chest. This was his chance to even the score. His grin widened as the rudeness I displayed to him during my last visit played on my mind.

Griggs turned his attention back to Lieutenant Colonel Jaz Chapman, now taking my place as Alpha Dogs' commanding officer.

It's not that I didn't want her to replace me, but rather- I knew she would be better for the job.

Besides, it's less stress for me babysitting a bunch of rainbow snowflakes in Bravo.

"You have to surrender your hog leg and rifle. No weapons past that line."

Jaz scoffed. "I'm bringing in a lot more than this." She tapped her .45 and walked past Griggs as if he wasn't even there.

I looked up and saw that a grim smile had stitched itself across his face.

I shrugged and snorted one nostril clean. "Want to get out of my way this time?"

He hesitated a moment, glanced up at the iron-barred roof as if to ascertain the information for himself before he passed it on, and then mirrored my shrug. "There's no need to be an asshole, Colonel."

"Yeah, well _she's_ worse." I bumped my shoulder against his, purely to display male dominance despite being completely unnecessary. "Don't give up the day job," I told him soberly.

"Colonel, can I have a word?" Griggs pressed, following me inside the gate.

I scoffed. "You can have two. Fuck off." Speeding ahead, I marched right into the yard where Amanda and Jaz were standing.

Waller was grinning as I joined her. "Was that really necessary, Flag?"

"I don't want to censor myself. That's how creativity dies."

"It helps a little if you think of them as people," Amanda suggested, her deep voice too fast for anyone to understand, if any had been close enough to hear.

"I know who he is," I said curtly, turning away to stare out one of the small windows that were spaced just under the eaves around the long yard. My tone ended the conversation.

Jaz met my gaze for a minute, and then looked down. I could imagine shame and rebellion war in her head.

"Sorry," I muttered.

Jaz shrugged. "You weren't going to do anything," she murmured, soothing my chagrin.

I fought back the grimace that would give her lie away. We had to stick together, Jaz and I.

It wasn't easy, being the only ones, each other could truly trust. Both freaks among those who were already freaks. We protected each other's secrets.

It had been two days since we were in the safety of military base, under the command of the General. That was not an immensely difficult time span for the rest of us. A little uncomfortable occasionally—if a certain _warden_ rubbed me the wrong way. But no one ever came too close.

Their instincts told them what their conscious minds would never understand: we were dangerous. Jaz was especially dangerous right now.

Special Forces trained to do something different from everyone else.

Our minds lived in the dark corners of the world. SEALs thought first and shot last.

They were the velvet hammer.

This was all quite normal, usually easy to ignore. It was harder just now, with the feelings stronger, doubled, as I monitored Jaz's reactions since she was more easily irritated today.

I stared at the cracks running through the plaster in the far corner of the yard, imagining patterns into them that were not there. It was one way to tune out the voices that babbled like the gush of a river as guards began to arrive. Several of these voices I ignored out of boredom.

Today, all conversations were consumed with the trivial drama of a spinning up the Task Force X again. It took so little to work them all up.

I'd heard the rumours repeated in every discussion from every angle. Just two ordinary SEALs. The excitement over our arrival was tiresomely predictable—like flashing a shiny object at a child.

Half the sheep-like males were already imagining themselves in love with Jaz, just because she was something new to look at. I tried harder to tune them out.

"Rick." Jaz called my name quietly and had my attention at once. It was just the same as having my name shouted. I was glad my last name had fallen out of grace lately—it had been annoying; anytime anyone mentioned any Flag, my head would turn automatically… My head didn't turn now. Jaz and I were good at these private conversations. It was rare that anyone caught us. I kept my eyes on the lines in the plaster.

"At least this time we don't have a world-wide threat. A chance to keep it under control before it does." Jaz reminded me.

I frowned, just a small change in the set of my mouth. Nothing that would tip the others off. I could easily be frowning out of boredom.

"Here is your best friend," Jaz's tone was alarmed now, and I saw she was watching her peripheral vision as Floyd Lawton-Deadshot- was escorted into the yard by an army of armed guards, accompanied by a very worried Captain Griggs.

"You're not going to let him shoot me again, are you?" Griggs was nervous.

"No, but I might if you don't shut up." I spat.

Griggs liked to whine about his unfair advantage-he was used to being the head warden in this hell-hole, and suddenly he wasn't as important.

Deadshot is often a hired assassin, regularly boasting to "Never Miss". He still looked the same- tired and sick of Grigg's bullshit.

One of his most defining traits is a desire to die in a spectacular fashion, this being his primary motivation for joining the Suicide Squad. He feels he has no reason to continue living, and, while he does not want to commit suicide, he simply does not care if he dies.

Deadshot is a consummate professional; as long as he has been paid to kill someone, he will always carry it out, without exceptions.

After the Squad put an end to the crisis in Midway City by defeating the Enchantress, Lawton is allowed supervised visits with his daughter in addition to having ten years removed from his sentence. He is last seen reading Zoe's letters and exercising in his cell.

I looked at Deadshot, whose eyebrows shot up as he scanned our faces. "Hey, Flag. You miss me or somethin'?"

"Same as last time, Deadshot."

"Ah, the take over the world ploy?," Deadshot mocked.

I sniffed. "You're up."

Deadshot wanted to protest, but he was smart enough to know it wasn't going to get him anywhere.

With half of Washington breathing down his ass, whatever was going on, it was big-way above his league. He was trolling in some very dangerous waters, and if he wanted to make it out again, he would have to be especially careful.

Griggs was doing his best to ignore Lawton glaring at him, he unlocked the assassin's shackles and chains.

"So, what is this? Suicide Squad reunion?"

"What gave it away, Deadshot? The fifty grand in scary black plastic?" Jaz tapped her gun. "Have at it, Lawton. Not that I'm expecting much. I've seen legends crumble."

"See you haven't changed. I mean, you both look the same, but you're still assholes." Deadshot grinned.

"We don't have time for this. Get ready to leave in twenty minutes." I turned to look at Jaz, who was chomping at the bit. It seemed she hadn't yet calmed down, and wanted to kill something.

Captain Boomerang was late to the party as usual, whining about having to join the squad for a second time.

He became a recurring enemy of the Flash, typically by devising altered boomerangs which could produce astonishing effects. Some would explode, others had razor-sharp edges and using them ruthlessly. He became a staple member of the Suicide Squad, a group of villains who had helped Waller extinguish the entity in the process of destroying the world close to a year ago.

Harkness was a less-than-effective member of the Suicide Squad in exchange for being pardoned for his crimes. However, Captain Boomerang's grating personality and blatant racism (among other things) ,caused considerable friction among his teammates, and he was considered to be a dangerous, vicious, cowardly and undependable member of the team—dysfunctional even by the Squad's standards and the equivalent of a class clown.

He also manipulated another team member, Slipknot, into running away from the action just to see if the explosive bracelets the Squad members wore really did activate if the wearer attempted to escape. Unfortunately for Slipknot, they did.

Harkness revealed a deep patriotism for his home country of Australia, though his countrymen do not care at all for him, and a tremendous fear of being laughed at. Deadshot even once commented he often wished he had killed Harkness, most notably after his recent attempt to escape, and entering a depressive phase because of it

Jaz characterized Captain Boomerang as "a jerk and a screw-up". This was not an undeserved reputation.

"Ah, I knew it would be you, Mr and Mrs. Flaggy. Who dares wins, aye?"

Harkness shrugged on his overcoat, already heavy with steel boomerangs. He let out a little laugh, and his eyes darted over his surroundings. "Where's the Sheila?"

"That's why you're here." I replied. "Harley's friend Joker is most likely on his way here. She's the bait. It's our job to put him in the same hole as you."

"So why don't you just get Batman to do it like last time?" Boomerang interrupted.

Jaz sighed. "Because he's dead. Joker got to him before he even knew he was still alive."

Deadshot rolled his eyes. "Of course he did. That's batshit crazy."

"Intel suggests the Joker is recruiting the help of Clifford DeVoe, better known as The Thinker, a man with technologically derived telekinesis and mind control, they've infiltrated the government to get revenge. It has forced a nation-wide shut down." Waller added.

I scanned their faces carefully, looking for signs of interest. What Waller was saying sounded like something out of a comic book, rather than real life. I was far more comfortable with the intricacies of state and the duplicity of war than supernatural mumbo-jumbo.

"Ever since the Enchantress… well, it's a whole new world out there, my friend."

"So, we're here to protect you, _again_." Deadshot was seething. If Deadshot felt at a disadvantage, it didn't show in his voice. "We already know the rules," he replied.

Waller's voice was shrill. She stammered her response. "You will do as I tell you, if it be today or a million times more. We're not people you mess with."

Deadshot's answer came an instant later, low and emotionless. "Neither am I."

Boomerang couldn't stop sweating as his gaze went back and forth between Deadshot and Waller. He knew he was caught between two psychopaths, but he didn't know if they left him any sort of exit strategy.

Armed sentinels stood beside Boomerang, outfitted to the teeth, waiting for him to make a wrong move. Any wrong move. The last time he had, he took out four of their squad before he was brought down by a triple dose of sedatives. These guards were not going to make the same mistake. They were armed and as brutally Neanderthal as supermax guards could be. They were also afraid of him. The guards knew the routine. They pulled out their tasers, prepped them, then waiting for someone to play up.

Their commander, Captain Griggs, was a tyrannical redneck, and proud of it. "The word batshit don't even scratch the surface, Lawton. Remember," the asshole said, "Waller is your queen. While you fester in this cage like a sick dog eating the scraps I feed you. No one knows you're here, Floyd, and no one ever will. With no calls. No mail. Just your memories—and those are gonna fade away, real soon."

Deadshot thought about what Griggs said, then turned to face him. "Griggs," he said, "I'll get out of here someday. Somehow I'll be like the holy spirit watching over you. Then I'll show you who wears the crown." He glanced at his tormentor out of the corner of his eye. Griggs's façade cracked, just a little bit. He looked like he wanted to lash out and punch the living hell out of Floyd, but he knew better. Instead, he spun and started to walk away. As he reached the gate, he turned back and smiled. "You just lost your mattress, for threatening staff," he announced. "Enjoy playing cops and robbers."

I watched as Deadshot massaged his callused knuckles, then suddenly unleashed a series of blows against the wall—so hard that they cracked the cement. He looked back at Griggs with murder in his eyes.

"What?" Griggs said, but there was a catch in his voice.

"Gonna take away the walls, too?" Deadshot sneered.

Griggs was going to say something more when Dixon tapped him on the shoulder. "We're needed, Captain," the toady said. "We need to go."

Griggs hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "This ain't over, killer," he said. "See you _if_ you get back."


End file.
